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Tranch
Tranch is a Hive World in the Calixis Sector. Even by Imperial standards, the war on Tranch has been a brutal and thankless affair. What started out as a simple mutant uprising on an unimportant minor Hive World quickly escalated into political collapse and a catastrophic civil conflict drawing in forces from all over the sector to contain it. Even though the war's heat has quelled now from the quarter-million strong troop landings six standard years ago that broke the insurrection's back, the slow-burning, bitter conflict has continued on a world tainted, twisted, and brutalised by centuries of malice and festering despair. Today the efforts to rebuild the world and re-establish order continue, and fresh regiments are continually cycled-in for tours of duty to brave the fire-blackened spires and the treacherous dark furnaces of the Soot Warrens. Their thankless and dangerous task is to defend the remaining citizenry, to bring Tranch slowly to heel and prevent the festering enemies of mankind from claiming the place again. History A grimy and relatively minor Hive World, Tranch's only lasting fame is a slow burning and vicious civil conflict that, despite countless lives lost, shows no sign of abating. Tranch's economy before the war was sustained in part by a sizable population of mutants utilised as slave labour in the Soot Warrens of the furnace levels. Its masters, the Oligarchs of Tranch, were pitiless and sadistic rulers with a history of brutal repression. When a portion of the mutant population rose up, few dreamed it would spark a conflict that would spread to engulf the entire planet and leave more than a billion dead. As initial policing actions by the Oligarchs' brutal local Enforcers failed, and battles boiled over from the warrens to the hab levels, it became clear that the mutants had powerful help and organisation on their side. Led by the Shrouds, a cabal of powerful rogue psykers and witches, the mutants' onslaught was further aided by the terrorist attacks of hidden Chaos Cults that struck without warning in the upper hives, sowing confusion and terror in the spires. As the situation rapidly worsened, the Oligarchs' grip on power began to slip and, giving in to fear, they redeployed troops away from the mid-hive levels in order to protect their own interests -- with disastrous results. The mutants surged up from the depths and slaughtered thousands. Soon the Oligarchs faced a second popular revolt by the masses they had all but abandoned. Tranch descended almost overnight into anarchy, and as news and lawlessness spread, nearby worlds, many long suffering from woes of their own, threatened to do the same. Seeing a world under his domain slipping unexpectedly into chaos and with others threatening to follow suit, a bloody lesson was clearly needed and the Sector Governor Marius Hax himself personally gave the order to raise regiments to "Crush this foul and treacherous vipers' nest in our blessed Emperor's dominion." Regiments were raised from Scintilla, Malfi, Iocanthos and elsewhere to descend upon beleaguered Tranch, accompanied by elements from the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition who sought to decapitate the tainted rebellion's Warp-twisted leadership. The war that followed is considered to be the most brutal in living memory in the Calixis Sector. Although the grip of the Shroud Council was swiftly broken and the mutants' unity shattered, the war did not end, and, instead of a single mutant army to face, there were now countless numbers of rebel factions, mutant bands, cults and scavengers picking over the burned out and shattered hives to contend with -- with no easy victory in sight. The purging campaign took nearly five standard years of inglorious and dirty warfare. Afterward, Tranch was left a seething pit of conflict and discord, and many of those "saved" were now relegated to the status of empty-eyed refugees eking out what living they could in the ruins. Now classified as "officially pacified," the Calixian Astra Militarum regiments who are routinely rotated through deployments on Tranch still take the brunt of the slowly simmering conflict and must face a thankless guerrilla war of ambushes, desperate victims, booby traps, atrocities and ever-present terror. Tranch today is still a militarised zone, administered as a fiefdom of the powers of the Malfian Sub-sector. Large-scale efforts to recolonise and restart the world's industry have only been partially successful, and whole hive spires, not to mention much of the Soot Warrens, are still lawless battlegrounds -- the domain of rogue mutants and worse. Departmento Cartographicae Planetary Database *'Galactic Position:' 16/17/CS/W *'Equatorial Circumference:' 11,500 Miles *'Population:' approximately 7,712,000,000 *'Society:' The Haal-Lorden are a trade guild from Tranch. *'Contact with Other Worlds:' There is a stable Warp tunnel between Tranch and the sector capital world of Scintilla. There are also Warp tunnels connecting Tranch to Spectoris and 88 Tanstar. Sources *''Dark Heresy: Core Rulebook'' (RPG), pg. 326 *''Dark Heresy: Disciples of the Dark Gods'' (RPG), pp. 54-55 *''Dark Heresy: The Inquisitor's Handbook'' (RPG), pp. 32, 179 *''Guide to the Calixis Sector'' (RPG PDF) Category:T Category:Calixis Sector Category:Hive World Category:Imperial planets Category:Imperium Category:Planets